Last defendant gets 2 months in resort-area fraud case

Updated 2:18 pm, Thursday, December 1, 2016

BALTIMORE (AP) — A western Maryland real estate dealer who conspired to defraud banks in a series of land deals near the vacation destinations of Deep Creek Lake, Maryland, and Cheat Lake, West Virginia, was sentenced Thursday to two months in federal prison.

Louis Strosnider's sentencing ended a nearly 3-year-old case in U.S. District Court in Baltimore. The investigation also netted a developer who posed as a fictitious church trustee and an attorney who helped them settle what prosecutors said were more than $5.7 million worth of fraudulent transactions, often involving straw companies as intermediaries. Bank losses totaled more than $1 million.

One of the deals involved about six acres near Deep Creek Lake State Park that developer Samuel VanSickle bought from the state of Maryland in 2001 for $199,000. He sold it to Strosnider for $2.9 million 18 months later, according to court records.

Another involved the Red Run Lodge, a restaurant and bed-and-breakfast at Deep Creek Lake that VanSickle helped a cousin buy for $600,000 in 2002. VanSickle then had the property transferred to the fictitious Gospel Church, which sold it to Strosnider for $3 million in 2004, court records state.

In 2003, VanSickle bought 116 undeveloped acres near Cheat Lake at an auction for $1.6 million, court records state. In 2005, Strosnider obtained a nearly $3.1 million bank loan to buy and develop the property, according to court records.

Strosnider, of Oakland, pleaded guilty in 2014 to one count of bank fraud conspiracy. His sentence includes restitution and forfeiture in amounts to be determined.

VanSickle, of Accident, was sentenced in June to two years in prison and ordered to forfeit $2.8 million.

Oakland attorney Angela Blythe was sentenced last year to one year in prison.

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